Knot Tonight Dear...

Frustration leads to yet another move

dboltres — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:12:39 +0000

OK – when I moved this blog to wordpress, I had my reasons. But after several weeks of working with it, I can’t quite get the look I want, so I am moving back to my old blog address. Please be patient with me, as it took me a while to get this one set up, and I am basically starting over on the old site. I think it will be worth it. In the meantime, here is the link

The “new” old one will have the link back here, plus the posts from this blog will be listed in the sidebar.

Thanks!

Debbie

Shhh! Don’t tell him!

dboltres — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:56:50 +0000

Tonight, I am doing my “my husband’s out of town and I can do anything I want” dance. I may stay up too late, knit while watching Jay Leno, eat ice cream right out of the container, and watch chick flicks. (Wildly decadent and exciting, I know – yet this is what my life has come to.) If anyone has seen the ad for either Charter or Comcast tv, (not sure which one) where the woman is having a ball staying home by herself while her husband is gone, then acts really sad (like she misses him) when he calls home, that woman could be me. Not that I don’t miss him, because I do, but it is so nice to have some time to myself once in a while.

So tonight I will be working on a major project, slogging along at it. Maybe it’s because it is so darn cold and snowy right now that I have been inspired to do this one. If any of you have read the Mason-Dixon knitting book, then you will be familiar with the log cabin and mitered square blankets that are the heart of the book. I have gotten a wild idea to combine the 2 patterns, and maybe some other quiltish looking ones into a large throw which I am going to then felt and back with velvet. Yes, I know it will be heavy. But more importantly, here in the frozen tundra, it will be the warmest thing known to man. And that is what motivates me.

For now, here is a pic of my latest creation – a ball band dishrag (yet another creation from Mason-Dixon) made from Lily Sugar n’ Cream. Why knit a dishrag? Why not?

Tomorrow – pictures of the first mitered squares. I just know you are all breathless with anticipation!

Knitting Cartoons

dboltres — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:30:34 +0000

Just found these and had to add them!

Losing my mind and other such thoughts

dboltres — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:23:21 +0000

My family has been sick. Yes, most of you could say that this is nothing special this time of year, and normally I would agree with you, but this year we are the poster family for the flu. In the last 3 weeks we have gone from my daughter throwing up, to my husband and myself having the flu, to my son having the flu, to my daughter throwing up again, to spending a Saturday night in the walk-in clinic because my son had a ear ache, to now, my husband has returned from a business trip with full fledged pneumonia. I am not a nurse, never wanted to be a nurse, yet somehow have become one. So when Mr. Pitiful wanted to know when I was coming home yesterday, and if I would be there to fix his soup, I told him I didn’t know if I could make it home in time. What I didn’t tell him was that my very important errand was to go to the yarn shop and soak in the vibe of my favorite place to hang. If you are not a knitter, this probably has as much appeal to you as spending an afternoon waiting to have your oil changed, but for us knitters, it is like your birthday and Christmas all rolled up into one place. Besides, if I didn’t get out you would most likely have found me by today huddled in a fetal position on the bathroom floor quietly whimpering.

On another note….

Finally finished the pair of socks that I was making for Mr. Pitiful. While he mocked me for spending so much time on them 2 weeks ago, he is today happy to have them and has not taken them off for fear that his feet would freeze and make him feel worse. Somehow I feel vindicated in making them for him. He has also decided that he loves the dishcloths that I have been making. Seems that his anal retentive, over the top cleanliness obsession makes him appreciate the superior qualities of a hand knit cloth over the cheap store bought kind. Yet another justification to keep on knitting!

A lack of concentration

dboltres — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:59:08 +0000

I’ve come to the conclusion that I must have A.D.D. – or at least when it comes to my knitting. I get so excited for a new project, get what I need for it, start it, then half way through it get sidetracked by the next new project. When I became a knitter, I vowed that I would not do what I do with other hobbies – purchase large quantities of supplies, only to end up letting them gather dust. No, this was going to be different. I was only going to do one project at a time, and only purchase what I needed for that one project. Hah! That didn’t last long! Last night I took an inventory of the unfinished, and I have to say that I must have lost my mind. So far I have the back of a sweater, 1 sock, a half finished hand towel, and a half finished prayer shawl. As I have been sitting here, I have been looking over the stash that I have acquired for at least 3 other unstarted important projects. So I must have A.D.D. – there is no other logical explanation.

A tale of Mice and Men (and one dog) chapter 2

dboltres — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:26:30 +0000

Who needs a cat when you have a mouse obsessed dog? Yesterday we came home to find a rather slimy dead mouse in our hallway. And one very proud dog. I don’t know what’s more disturbing, finding a dead mouse in your hall, or knowing that there are probably more where that one came from. The dog, however, is very satisfied. Little did we know when we named her Minnie Mouse that she would really be a mouse dog.

A tale of Mice and Men (and one dog)

dboltres — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:10:14 +0000

I love where I live. We are close to town, close to all things necessary, yet we have a little land, which gives us the somewhat false feeling of being alone in the woods. On any given day I can look out my living room window and see anything from half a dozen deer walking behind our house, to 25 turkeys tormenting my dogs, to a hawk or a piliated woodpecker sitting in one of the hundreds of trees we have. There is, however, a down side. Mice. Not a mouse, but mice. Plural. It started when we moved in. Signs of mice in the storage room. For 2 years, that was the only place we ever saw them. Every now and then we would hear my husband yelling, “got a customer!”, and we knew he had caught another one. Then there was the day that I found a half – dead mouse on the floor of my office, but since my office is next to the storage room, we still were lulled into thinking they were confined to that area of the basement. That is, until the other day. I was putting clothes away in my daughter’s room, only to notice that our little cairn terrier, who is the poster child for obsessive compulsive disorder, was pointing the corner of my daughter’s room. The more we watched her, the more we realized that she was fixated on a critter of some sort. It was then that my daughter informed me that Minnie had been there all night the night before growling at the corner. Sure enough, on closer inspection, there was a hole big enough in the baseboard for a mouse. Half an hour later we heard Minnie start to growl again – only this tim, by the time we got in there, she had torn a hole the size of a baseball into the carpet trying to dig for the pesky critter. Since then, we have had various mouse appearances throughout the basement. Last night Marty, my hubby, informed me that he could hear them through the wall of his upstairs office. I now have traps with cheese set in every duct in the house practically, and am afraid that if we don’t find their door to the house they will soon outnumber us and take over my otherwise very peaceful world. So just know that if you don’t hear from me again, the mice are in control.

The Great Plague of 2008

dboltres — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:16:10 +0000

I have the world’s greatest excuse for knitting – my better half and I are both sick as dogs – so naturally the only thing that I can do is sit, and of course, knit! I also feel justified by the fact that we have had over 9 inches of snow, so much snow that even my dogs won’t go out in it, and look at me as if I were sending them to a house of horrors every time I even suggest they step foot into it. It all makes for a pretty convincing argument for knitting all day. I am working on a linen hand towel in a beautiful sage green – of course, I would never pay for a hand towel at a store what I paid for the yarn for this, but when its for your passion, you can justify anything. Anyone wanting a sneak preview can find it in the Mason-Dixon knitting book. Maybe by tomorrow, if I haven’t coughed myself to death, I will have a photo of it partially done. By the way, no comments on my lack of grammar in this post – I am officially brain dead and not responsible for what I write.

The month of love

dboltres — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:30:58 +0000

With February being the month of love, I was inspired to do something with hearts. Another blogger has created some really fun and quick dishrag patterns that are seasonal, so for those of you with love and knitting in mind, check out Kris Knits for her fun valentine’s dishrag. And if you are one of those who has already started your Christmas projects for next year,(personally I am not sure I want to know anyone who is this organized), look through her blog for the Santa inspired dishcloth as well.

A Super Superbowl

dboltres — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:44:26 +0000

To some, the most important thing about the superbowl is not the game, or even the commercials, it is the food. And after 11 years of marriage, I finally had had enough. Let me explain. To those who don’t know, I am originally from Texas, and, as any true Texan knows, there is only one way to make chili- WITHOUT BEANS! Now, I know some of you may find this hard to believe, but if you serve a Texan something with beans and call it chili, they will laugh right in your face. Now, I am married to what my mother refers to as a “yankee” – although he is not from the north, but from the mid-west. When we married he had a tradition of making what he calls chili, (and I refer to as soup) every superbowl. I have gone along with this for many years, turning my back to my Texas roots. This year, however, he has been taunting me more than usual – saying that my chili is not really chili. So, I decided that it was high time that we settled this in the only way a true Texan knows how to, with a chili cookoff. Despite his best efforts to bribe our children and their friends with money, my chili was the biggest hit. Not necessarily that mine was better in the eyes of our friends, but more that it was a novelty. (More than one was heard to say, “this looks like something you’d make a taco out of”). The true test will be next year when the novelty has worn off. In the meantime, The New York Giants may be the 2008 superbowl champs, but I will claim the title of chili champ for the year 2008.